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Carr rules out Australian arms for Syrian rebels

Updated
Sat 15 Jun 2013, 10:25 AM AEST

Foreign Minister Bob Carr has told Saturday AM that he cannot see any way in which Australia would join the US in arming Syria's rebels, despite revelations that chemical weapons have been used against them.

Transcript

ELIZABETH JACKSON: The Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr joins us live now to talk about this latest development.

Minister, how do you - how significant do you think this decision is?

BOB CARR: Well obviously we take very seriously the US conclusion, that based on intelligence there has been multiple use, although on a small scale, of chemical weapons; that's repugnant to us. Australia's been a leader in this field. The convention on chemical weapons use is there because this is a mass atrocity weapon.

So, we've got a keen interest in this, and we acknowledge the seriousness with which the American administration takes it.

Our approach continues to be one focused on a political settlement. And what America has said increases the possibility of a successful Geneva Two, if the Russian response is that a Geneva Two conference is the best way of averting a trajectory of increased Western support to the Syrian opposition.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: So are you suggesting that this is really just as much a message to Russia as it is to the rebels and the regime in Syria?

BOB CARR: I'm not entitled to put that interpretation on it. But, we want Russia and the United States to walk into a Geneva Two conference, and bring with them the involvement of both sides of this appalling war of attrition in Syria.

A political solution is directed immediately at attaining that cease fire that will end the demolition of homes and the wounding and slaying of a wretched suffering people. And second, set up an institution, a transitional governing authority with full executive powers that can steer the country to that happy day when the people of Syria themselves will choose their government.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Minister, it seems as though the Americans are talking specifically about small arms weaponry in their assistance to the rebels. Is that, in your view, going to alter the outcome for the rebels?

BOB CARR: I haven't got the advantage of a military assessment in front of me, but I think there has been a consensus that the Assad government is mightily well equipped, especially with air defences.

It has the advantage of a Warsaw Pact style army, and indeed, as has been pointed out to me, it has an approach to chemical weapons that was true of Warsaw Pact style armies when the existed in central and eastern Europe; that is, that they're conventional - a bit of conventional weaponry.

Assad is certainly better supported by his own forces than was the regime of president Gaddafi.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: What are the implications in all of this for Australia?

BOB CARR: Well Australia adheres to a position where one, we'll continue to be one of the most generous suppliers of humanitarian support to the refugees; refugees I've met in Jordan and most recently in Lebanon. These people have arrived, crossing the border at night with only the clothes they stand in. They've lost everything; many unaccompanied children, which renders it terribly tragic.

We've supplied $78 million through United Nations agencies to go these refugee camps, supplying them with the emergency accommodation, the drinkable water, the child protection officers, and the rest that they so desperately need; so humanitarian support is the Australian focus.

Plus the advocacy, this is the second leg of our policy on Syria, of a medical pact; so that if the fighting continues, at least doctors and nurses will be protected, and hospitals not used as bases or targets, and that medicines will flow in convoys into all parts, all zones of the country.

And the third leg of our policy is to advocate that political solution; initially a cease fire, and then a transitional governing authority in the country to steer it towards a pluralistic future, a plural democratic Syria, a multi-faith country.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Does this decision in any way extend our obligations? Would you expect that America might ask that Australia might contribute to the small arms weaponry to be distributed to the rebels?

BOB CARR: No, I couldn't see any way in which Australia would respond by providing military support to the rebels, it's not our sphere of influence or responsibility. And our target will be a political solution, humanitarian involvement, the advocacy of a medical pact to see that medicines can reach this country, and the protection of minorities. I think this is an important theme; I've raised the protection of Syrian minorities whenever I've spoken to Europeans, Arab or American figures. We've got to see, we've got to see that all minorities in this country are protected and are not subject to the targeting that could well be their predicament even when the fighting stops.